[Upd-discuss] Cliff Richard challenges EU rock'n'roll 'swindle'

sandor upd@sandor.net
Mon, 01 Nov 2004 11:04:57 -0800 

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Well done.<br>
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<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:becky@idnet.co.uk">becky@idnet.co.uk</a> wrote:
<blockquote cite="mid15423234600422@mail.idnet.co.uk" type="cite">
  <pre wrap="">Thanks Mickey and James.

FYI, please find below a letter I have just sent off to the Times.

To Mr Adam Sherwin

I write in response to your article in the November 1 issue of The Times "Cliff challenges EU rock'n'roll 'swindle'"

Sir Cliff Richard, though no doubt admirable in his desire to lead "a fight for music&#8217;s unsung heroes" should understand that he is achieving quite the opposite through his lobbying of the EU to extend the terms of copyright on sound recordings beyond 50 years. For it is those creators of music in the 60s that is no longer commercially viable today who will really lose out should the copyright term be extended.

Because as well as lusty pornographers, who are no doubt itching to use Sir Cliff's happy ditties to soundtrack their nefarious visuals, there is a community of online music enthusiasts who lust after the not so well-sung musical heroes of the sixties. Once the music is released into the public domain, this community will be free to distribute fringe music to a whole new generation of fans. Okay, the composers of the music will get no (immediate) financial compensation - but they wouldn't anyway. And what they will get is new recognition for their work, recognition that has been denied to them ever since their record companies decided they were no longer commercially viable, and stopped releasing their music.

Because for every song that record companies treasure for ongoing back-catalogue profits, there are hundreds if not thousands of recordings that have been languishing on record company shelves for decades, with nobody to hear them. Should the EU choose to heed Sir Cliff, keeping his work out of the public domain for a further 45 years or even more, he will drag down with him this huge body of commercially worthless but culturally significant work. It is this body of work that "those who believe that music should be 'free'" are truly worried about - and it is the emancipation of this music, not the financial cost, with which they are concerned.

Yours sincerely

Becky Hogge

---- Message from James Davis <a class="moz-txt-link-rfc2396E" href="mailto:jamesd@jml.net">&lt;jamesd@jml.net&gt;</a> at 2004-11-01 15:34:00 ------
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    <pre wrap="">On Mon, 1 Nov 2004 <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:becky@idnet.co.uk">becky@idnet.co.uk</a> wrote:

    </pre>
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      <pre wrap="">Quick question - are Cliff's moral rights over songs he has both created
and performed affected once the performance rights have expired?
      </pre>
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    <pre wrap="">As an aside, from what I can tell the A side of his first single was
Schoolboy Crush, (a hit in the US for Bobby Helms). The B-side was Move It
and written by Ian Samwell. I also seem to recall from a radio interview
last week that Sir Cliff doesn't write his own songs.

James

--
"You're turning into a penguin. Stop it"
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/">http://jamesd.ukgeeks.co.uk/</a>


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